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A special appeal today on behalf of Mario Batali, who was my friend Gina DePalma’s employer at Babbo for more than 10 years. Gina helped Mario open Babbo as his executive pastry chef. She is battling ovarian cancer and needs support covering the costs of her care.

Gina is a good friend of mine who I met when she rented an apartment from me and my ex-husband in 2008, when we still rented properties in Trastevere. Gina was in Rome working on her second cookbook. (Her first, Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, is a gorgeous collection of recipes and photography, and we even tried a bunch of them out in the blogosphere; I made Chocolate and Tangerine Semifreddo.) Gina became ill while she was working here in Rome and returned in summer 2008 to NYC, where she was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. She had a major operation to remove the cancer and has been bravely fighting the disease since then. The cancer has gone into remission and returned three times and the situation now is very critical.

The event on Monday, February 24 will be held at Otto Enoteca/Pizzeria in NYC. If you can’t attend, you can also make a donation at the Event Brite Page, click here. Your donation will go directly to Gina to support the costs of her care.